" PROGRESS " AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
PROGRESS at Constantinople is apt to be of the downward kind, and during the last fortnight, progress of that kind has been steady and rather rapid. Ever since we heard of the delightful reforms initiated by the Minister of Justice who had superseded almost all the Christian Judges under his Department by sound Mahommedans, warranted to administer justice in that ex parte sense which Mahommedan principles almost require, it was evident that if the Grand Vizier could not obtain a victory over his colleagues, the thin mockery called Turkish administrative reform would be at an end. And now, apparently, it is at an end. Khaireddin Pasha has given in his resignation, and his resignation has been accepted. Caratheodory Pasha, the Christian Foreign Minister, has given up the Foreign Office to Safvet Pasha. The influence of Mahmoud Darned in all these changes is clear, and the disposition to draw away from English influence and to draw towards Russian influence more than -suspected. In a word, Turkey is finding out that all that • our counsels bring her is increasing impotence ; that so far as she is compelled by Europe to do as we suggest, she resigns to the living races of the East the power which she used to wield over them, and gets nothing, not even available cash, in return, We do not wonder that the Sultan and the Pashas see very little use indeed in parting with power, and wealth, and influence, and pleasure, and all they care for, only to be assured by the British Ambassador that they are very good children indeed, and must never think of asking for their old enjoyments back again ; but must, on the con- trary, go on giving up more and more of them. They think, doubtless, that under the protection of Russia they will not be so much pestered about reforms, but will be permitted to use the power over the Infidel while they have it, on condition only of making easy terms with Russian diplomacy on all points on which Russia takes an immediate interest. And really we do not know that, from their utterly selfish point of view, they are wrong. What can they get by reforms, except the good of populations for which they care less than nothing, at the expense of an earlier sacrifice of power and pillage, for which they care very much indeed ? And most likely, too, they are quite in the right in supposing that Russia will torment them much less about reforms than we shall. It becomes Russia's role now and then, when the wrongs of the Christian subjects of Turkey are made known to the world in some very con- epicuous and painful scandal, to interfere in their behalf, for the Russian people would not be quiet unless the Govern- ment of Russia did interfere in this way. But for the present, that rile is played out. Russia has done great service to the Christian Slays, at a great cost to her- self. The popular crave is satisfied for the moment. The Government of Russia is at liberty, for another indefinite period, to play with this question as it pleases; and very likely it will play with it, and insist more on Turkey's co-operat- ling with Russia in the East, and promoting her influence ,.and her ambition, than on Turkey's conceding anything that costs a real political sacrifice, to the Armenians, or Mace- donians, or Greeks. If so, why should not Turkey follow her instinct, and having appeased Russia, pay just as little attention to Sir H, Layard's admonitions and threats as she likes ? The Sultan knows very well that for all our threats, we have no notion of invading Asia Minor in order to enforce the fulfilment of the Anglo-Turkish Convention, Words, mere words, aro all we ever• intended to spend on that great enterprise. The talk about Cyprus as " a place of arms " for the protection of the East, was all braggadocio and nothing more. The only ,nilitary Powers with which, as military Powers, Turkey will
have at present to reckon, are Russia and Austria, and Austria only so far as regards Europe, not in any degree as regards Asia. Hence, with a proper degree of submissiveness, so far as affects what is lost already, and a conciliatory attitude to- wards Russia, the Turks may still hope to play their old game in Asia, if not even hi some parts of Europe, without any dread of military interference. Why should not this content them, when the only alternative is to gain the name of empire at the cost of everything which makes empire sweet to them ? We cannot wonder, then, that the party of Mahmoud Darned is re- covering its ascendancy. We incline even to think that Lord Salisbury made his great fight for the division of the two Bulgarias at Constantinople rather with the view of doing some one thing which might convince Turkey that it was worth her while to trust us, and distrust Russia, than for any belief in the intrinsic value of the thing done. And if so, he has had his reward. For about a year, Turkey has, hesitatingly and doubtfully, but still, on the whole, not without the affecta- tion of confidence, inclined rather to the English than to the Russian school of counsellors, whenever it was necessary to choose between them. Thus the Tory Government got through the imbroglio of Berlin with the credit of a not quite unsuccessful Turkish championship, and induced the British nation to believe that the Anglo-Turkish Convention was not quite so pure a fiction as it really was. But Turkey has now found out that the fee we paid her for appearing to trust us was value- less ; that, in reality, she has not got the frontier of the Balkans, after all; that her sovereignty in East Roumelia is as much of a mere name as her sovereignty in Bulgaria ; that we had paid her with mere pretences of power for yielding us a most embarrassing and unwelcome right of interference, and that nothing further in the shape of money, troops, or even substantial diplomatic help appears to be forthcoming. It seems, then, very natural that Turkey should weary of engage- ments for which the price seems to have been paid in paper of no marketable value, and that she should now be disposed to try what an understanding with Russia may effect, even though it should involve the not very dangerous prospect of a misunderstanding with England.
It is more difficult to say how this downward progress in Constantinople is regarded by the Government at home, or how they intend to represent the matter to the country. They have taken so much credit for their Turkish policy, and that policy has found so much favour with their own party, that to let all the world know that it had proved a failure, and that nothing can be made of their dull pupil, of whom hitherto they had given out such hope- ful auguries, might prove dangerous at the next gene-
ral election. And yet it is hard to read the recent speeches of the Foreign Secretary, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and their lieutenant in East Roumelia, Sir H. D. Wolff, without discovering in these speeches a current of feeling almost avowedly hopeless in relation to Turkey, and a disposition to wash their hands of her affairs. Sir H. D. Wolff is hardly the man to speak as he did last week in the House of Commons, if he thought that by so speaking he would greatly annoy and embarrass his official chiefs. There are to us signs in the air of a new attitude towards Turkey, —of a growing feeling of disgust for the impossible rile of guide, philosopher, and friend which England had taken up,— of a disposition to throw up cards so utterly worthless. But whether these signs are to be interpreted as indications of a change coming over Lord Beaconsfield, or rather of a decline of Lord Beaconsfield's influence in his own Cabinet, is a very difficult question. No one need ever imagine that if Lord Bea- consfield found a policy unworkable, he would not at once hasten to change it. He is not so great a fanatic for Turkey, but that if he saw a new and mpre promising policy involving the sacrifice of Turkey, ho would grasp at it at once. At the same time, it must be admitted that such a change of tack on the eve of a general election would be a very difficult and dangerous one. The Government have said so much about the impossibility of dispensing with Turkey,—have claimed so much credit for the influence they were going to acquire over Turkey,—have boasted so much of the cheap price at which that influence was to be gained,—that to confess openly to the world that it would be necessary to dispense with Turkey after all, that they had acquired no influence over her worth the name, and that what they bad expended on the effort to gain that influence had been simply wasted, would be a great humili- ation, a public avowal of failure. We can hardly believe that any such violent change of tack as this, on the eve of a general election, would be at all possible. And this, we think, must be quite as obvious to Lord Beaconsfield's colleagues as it is to Lord Beaconsfield himself. To go to the polls with the confession that " peace with honour " was a sham, that " honour rooted in dishonour stood," would be a very unpromising electioneering policy indeed. Probably the true explanation of the new candour is that, the Russian troops having evacuated the Turkish provinces, the Govern- ment think that the British people will be satisfied, and will hardly understand the ins and outs of any quarrel they may have with the Turkish Government ; and that oven if they make a clean breast of their hopelessness, though it might conciliate a few Liberals, it would never be understood by their own supporters as a confession of failure. And perhaps they are right. It may well be that the public interest in Turkey is getting exhausted, and that the Russian attack being at an end, even the most pro-Turkish of the Anglo- Turkish party will listen to frank admissions of Turkish cor- ruption and imbecility, without seeing in them the least con- demnation of their own policy. If this be the true explanation of the new frankness of the Government, it would be all of a piece with that policy devised to fascinate the Residuum— the policy adopted for sale, but not for use—which they have promoted all through. Every one of the great Foreign-Office coups has hitherto been more or less of a sham. And now, if the whole drift of the policy,—except so far as it has got the Russians home again with a sort of appearance of audacity, —be acknowledged at once to have no bottom in it,it would be but a confession that Lord Beaconsfield thinks a foreign policy of show, a foreign policy of flourishes, the one best adapted to win votes at the poll, without costing blood on the field of battle, and that he has the most absolute confidence in the inability of the constituencies to distinguish between such a foreign policy, and one of real purpose and real grandeur. We can only express our belief that the British people are not quite so shallow as is supposed ; and that the confessions which are now beginning to leak out so freely that Turkey is incor- rigibly and hopelessly corrupt, will sink into the mind of the constituencies, andresult in a severe repudiation of the Govern- ment which pretended to risk so much for a cause which they themselves are compelled to abandon before they have even secured the complete evacuation by the victors of the territory of the vanquished.
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